Price index concepts and measurement (University of Chicago Press, 2009)
"NBR, National Bureau of Economic Research"--Cover
Includes bibliographical references and indexes
Introduction: what are the issues? / W. Erwin Diewert, John Greenlees, and Charles Hulten -- A review of reviews: ninety years of professional thinking about the consumer price index / Marshall Reinsdorf and Jack E. Triplett -- Apparel prices 1914-93 and the Hulten/Bruegel paradox / Robert J. Gordon -- Re-assessing the U.S. quality adjustment to computer prices: the role of durability and changing software / Robert C. Feenstra and Christopher R. Knittel -- Hedonic imputation versus time dummy hedonic indexes / W. Erwin Diewert, Saeed Heravi, and Mick Silver -- Comment: Jan de Haan -- Reply by W. Erwin Diewert, Saeed Heravi and Mick Silver -- CPI bias from supercenters: does the BLS know that Wal-Mart exists? / Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag -- Comment: Marshall Reinsdorf -- Comment: Mick Silver -- Incorporating financial services in a consumer price index / Dennis Fixler -- Comment: Susanto Basu -- A general-equilibrium asset-pricing approach to the measurement of nominal and real bank output / J. Christina Wang, Susanto Basu, and John G. Fernald -- Comment: Paul Schreyer -- Can a disease-based price index improve the estimation of the medical CPI? / Xue Song, William D. Marder, Robert Houchens, Jonathan E. Conklin, and Ralph Bradley -- Comment: Ernst R. Berndt -- Price and real output measures for the education function of government exploratory estimates for primary and secondary education / Barbara M. Fraumeni, Marshall Reinsdorf, Brooks B. Robinson, and Matthew P. Williams -- Measuring the output and prices of the lottery sector: an application of implicit expected utility theory / Kam Yu -- Comment: Alan G. White -- Consumption of own production and cost of living indices / Peter Hill -- Durables and owner occupied housing in a consumer price index / W. Erwin Diewert -- Comment: Alan Heston
Although inflation is much feared for its negative effects on the economy, how to measure it is a matter of considerable debate that has important implications for interest rates, monetary supply, and investment and spending decisions. Underlying many of these issues is the concept of the Cost-of-Living Index (COLI) and its controversial role as the methodological foundation for the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Price Index Concepts and Measurements brings together leading experts to address the many questions involved in conceptualizing and measuring inflation. They evaluate the accuracy of COL.